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Babe Smith
Babe Smith (known as Aunt Babe) made her first appearance on 31st January 2014 & is the sister of Sylvie and the aunt of Shirley and Tina Carter. Backstory Babe Smith was born in about 1949. In the early 60's up west, Sylvie worked at a little club in Soho called the Snow Globe. Sylvie had forgotten her key and Babe had to take them to her. Outside the club Babe's heel got stuck in a drain grate, Stan pulled her shoe free. Babe was only 15 at the time. Stan was in his 20's, he helped Babe down the stairs and into the club. Babe gave Sylvie her keys but she took no notice of her. Sylvie linked her arm through Stan's and asked if he'd buy her a drink. Stan later married Sylvie. Babe and Sylvie's mother Edna, attended the wedding. Babe wanted to be with Stan but he wed Sylvie. According to Babe her legs were her best feature, when she was younger. When Babe was 14 in 1963, her friend Lizzie Halligan became pregnant. She was one of Babe old friends from Canning Town. Lizzie's Dad was a drinker and beat her Mum up regularly. Lizzie couldn't turn to them so she turned to Babe. Babe took her to Queenie Trott for help. Queenie knew of a couple who wanted to adopt a baby. After Lizzie's baby was placed somewhere else, Babe went out and looked for pregnant girls that she could take back to Queenie and sell their baby on. After her niece Shirley Carter fell pregnant and Mick was born, Babe told Queenie she was not intersted anymore and went to sea with the Navy. Storylines Babe arrives in Walford when the The Queen Victoria is holding a karaoke night. Her relationship with her niece, Tina, is very close, but she finds Shirley distant, and would like to spend more time with her. She tells Shirley that she has not made contact with her sister, Shirley and Tina's mother, Sylvie Carter, in months. However, she has missed three calls from her. She contacts her sister, but does not tell her where she is. Babe returns later helps the Carters prepare for a protest against the closure of Bridge Street Market, and reveals that when the children were young, she sold marijuana to help out financially. She later helps Tina, who is struggling for money, by giving her marijuana to sell. She gives Tina chocolate brownies cooked with the drug, but Liam Butcher takes them, mistaking them for normal brownies. Mick and Shirley discover this and Shirley burns the stash, leading Babe to threaten to reveal the secret that Shirley is Mick's mother. Tina later introduces Babe to her girlfriend, Tosh Mackintosh. Babe warns Tosh not to hurt or upset Tina otherwise Babe will deal with her severely. It becomes apparent Sylvie lives with Babe, and Sylvie's ex-husband Stan Carter becomes suspicious when he sees Babe buying lilies, Sylvie's favourite flower. Shirley is upset when her flame, Phil Mitchell abandons his plan to leave his current fiance Sharon Rickman at the altar to be with her, and Babe becomes her confidant, and plants the seed in her mind that she should take revenge. Shirley shoots Phil, and flees Walford with Babe's help afterwards. Babe then lies to the Carters, telling them she has not seen Shirley. Babe discovers that Stan has terminal prostate cancer after following him to a hospital visit. She urges him to reveal his secret to the family, but he refuses, so Babe does it instead, personally upset by the news and feeling it is unfair not to tell the others. They are devastated and Stan is furious with her, and later takes her aside and demands to know where she is hiding Shirley. After Shirley returns, Tina is beaten up by Tosh when Babe shows Sonia Fowler's watch to her, leading Tosh to believe that they are having an affair. When Shirley and Mick go to Babe's house, intending to confront Babe, they find Sylvie who has Alzheimer's disease. Mick brings Sylvie to Walford for Christmas, later discovering the truth about his parentage on Christmas Day. Shirley and Stan initially clash, but when he apologises for the way he treated her in the past the two become close again, upsetting Babe, who admits she had loved Stan herself and always resented Sylvie for 'stealing' him. When Stan attempts to take Sylvie to the seaside she becomes confused and upset, and Babe tells the rest of the family she can no longer look after Sylvie alone. Despite Stan's protests, they agree to put Sylvie into a care home. However, at a goodbye party Sylvie and Shirley have an angry confrontation, with Sylvie blurting out that when Shirley 'fell' down the stairs whilst pregnant with Mick she'd actually pushed her. When an upset Shirley reveals it was Babe who came up with the idea to pass Mick off as Sylvie's child, Mick is furious and tells both Sylvie and Babe to leave for good. Babe returns to The Vic a few weeks later offering to lend a hand at a busy wedding reception, but Mick's wife Linda Carter suggests it's best she leaves. However, when Stan loses use of his legs due to prostate cancer, Tina contacts Babe asking her to visit, having argued with him and hoping her aunt can talk sense into him. Stan acts annoyed but is secretly pleased to see her, and agrees to make up with Tina. Babe is upset when he proposes to Cora Cross, but encourages her to accept the proposal as Stan will never love her. After Stan's death, Babe excludes Cora from his funeral and encourages the rift between Mick and Shirley. After the funeral and wake, Babe visits Sylvie in the care home and reveals that Stan has died. Sylvie is furious as Babe never allowed her to attend, but every time Sylvie asks her why Babe changed the subject. After this an angry Babe tells Sylvie that she always has to take things from her and Sylvie calls her jealous and insults her. Babe slaps Sylvie causing her to cry. As Babe leans in to hug her, Sylvie bites Babe's shoulder and threatens to tell the police about the criminal thing she and Queenie Trott had done several years earlier. Babe's attempts to continue the Carters' rift include holding a "make-up" lunch between Mick and Shirley and suggesting to Mick that he buy Shirley out of the pub while she is out of earshot after her son Jimbo's death is brought up, paying a teenager to throw a brick saying rapist through the window of Mick's brother Dean Wicks's salon and then offering the money to buy out Shirley's share. Shirley's boyfriend and Mick and Dean's father, Buster Briggs, recognizes the teenager who threw the brick, learns the truth from him and confronts Babe in front of the Carters. Angry, and realizing that she has made their family problems even worse than they already were, Mick and Shirley force Babe to leave Walford. She threatens Shirley before leaving, warning her to watch her back. When Abi tells Ben she is pregnant when in fact she is not Abi asks Babe what to do, Babe encourages her to get pregnant by with someone else because soon Ben will expect her to start showing. Abi is frightened at this but Babe tells her that if she does not have a baby she will lose Ben. Her departure from the show was announced on September 17th 2016. List of Appearances Gallery Aunt Babes Red Caravan Ramsgate (2015).jpg|Aunt Babes Red Caravan Ramsgate (2015) Babe Smith Bank Account (6 May 2016).jpg|Babe Smith Bank Account (6 May 2016) Babe Smith Bank Account 2 (6 May 2016).jpg|Babe Smith Bank Account (6 May 2016) Category:Characters Category:Female Characters Category:Carter Family Category:Introduced by Dominic Treadwell-Collins Category:1946 Births Category:Villains Category:EastEnders Bad Girls Category:Past Characters Category:2014 Arrivals Category:2017 Departures